“The Death of 25-Man Raids in WoW” or “A Larger Discussion on Cataclysm Raid Changes”

Yesterday Blizzard Entertainment announced some unexpected changes to the raid structure in World of Warcraft’s third upcoming expansion, Cataclysm. 10-man instances and 25-man instances will feature the same loot from boss encounters, and will share a raid lockout ID. In other words, if you can get an item from a 25-man instance, you can get the same item from the 10-man.

Some Questions About the Raid Lockout ID

The only thing I am confused about is raid lockout IDs. If the 25-man and 10-man versions share the same ID, does this mean a) if you kill a boss in the 25-man version, he also dies in he 10-man version, or b) If you are saved to a 25-man instance, you cannot enter the 10-man version of that instance for that week.

Additionally, is it possible to kill one boss in the 25-man version, and kill the next one in the 10-man version, since the ID is the same?

Answers, I suspect, will emerge over the course of time.

A Matter of Difficulty

So far, the 10-mans feature the same encounters as 25-mans, simply tweaked to the smaller group size. In most cases the 10-man version of an encounter is easier, since there may be a smaller number of factors or combat mechanics to manage. In certain other cases, the 10-man versions are substantially harder than their 25-man counterparts (Sartharion + 3D comes to mind).

One of the things highlighted in the announcement was that the difficulty fluctuation between 10-mans and 25-mans will be closer. I am sure anyone can agree, it would be virtually impossible to ensure the same exact difficulty for any given encounter across both types of raids, so I wonder how this claim can be made with the wide disparity of combat mechanics involved in a 10-man, vs. a 25-man.

Shifting Perspectives

It is interesting to me how difference in your status as a raider can diametrically alter the manner in which you look at this piece of news. I have been playing WoW with the same band of ruffians, off an on, for the last five years or so. In that time, we have raided 40-man instances, briefly held on to the top-dog slot on our server, and conquered 25-man, 20-man and 10-man content. The group I run with is at a juncture where we are tired of having to recruit new individuals to our folds every few months as people splinter, burn out, get tired or simply move on. We are just focused on building and maintaining a very closely-knit force of about 10-12 raiders to consistently take on 10-man content.

So when we heard of the announcement above, everyone in the core group was ecstatic. We would no longer have to be second-class citizens simply because we did not want to go through the pains of running 25-mans with nearly 15 unknown individuals. We could finally compete with the larger guilds on equal footing.

“Please, do not screw over the players who prefer to do 25s. I believe some of the extra rewards are badges, loot, and gold. The extra gold is nice and all but for most organizations, it isn’t a problem. Having extra badges will speed up the gearing process for sure.”

Matticus fears people will naturally gravitate towards 10-mans because they are easier (and arguably faster) to organize than 25-mans, and now offer the same exact loot. Understandable I suppose. I mean think about it, the 10-mans now enjoy the advantages of some of the following:

a tightly-knit crew

ease of organization

speed of putting it together

access to the same content and itemization

better probability of rolling for an item you need (a 10% chance in 10-mans vs. a 4% chance in 25-mans)

He also brings up another interesting point. In the past, players from the 25-man version of an instance would tear up the 10-man version because they were over-geared. But the playing field is the same now: both instances offering the same rewards implies that gearing from the 25-man will not give you a distinct advantage over the 10-man.

Larisa, over at the Ping Pigtail Inn, another 25-man raider, shares the same perspective. She also feels that 25-mans should have better rewards than 10-mans because organizing a 25-man raid is significantly more complicated. Having organized a guild of over 60 individuals for 40 man raids in vanilla WoW, I understand her perspective, but being in the 10-man raiding boat now, I don’t agree with her conclusion.

She herself states that the 10-mans can be arguably more difficult because the mistake of one individual has that much more impact on the overall raid than in a 25-man. This is perhaps the most powerful argument to make for the upcoming change. On any given encounter in a 25-man, if a healer gets himself killed, there are still (on average) four other healers that can pick up the slack. If a healer dies in the 10-man, the other healer is effectively screwed unless there is some sort of miracle. Losing one DPS’er in a 25-man could mean a net loss of 1 / (25 – 5 healers -3 tanks) x 100 = 5.88% DPS. Losing the same in a 10-man implies a net loss of 1 / (10 – 2 healers – 2 tanks) x 100 = 16.67% DPS, nearly three times the overall impact.

Additionally, there is a social argument to be made here. Having played with a large number of individuals in the many years I have played the game, I know I am playing at my best and I am most comfortable when I am raiding with individuals that I can trust with my virtual life. A 10-man, for me, has just the right number of individuals that I can rely on in any given situation. In any raid larger than 25 people, I am almost guaranteed to run with at least a few individuals I might not be comfortable playing with. So if I just want to play with my core group, why should my raiding be penalized because I choose not to group with the people I don’t enjoy playing the game with. This new change affords smaller, closely-knit communities this exact privilege: to enjoy the game with the people you want to play with, without having to worry about doing inferior content for inferior loot.

Larisa also quotes a comment from MMO-Champion:

“This means basicly get the best ppl from you 25 man raiding guild , kick out all others , and focus on 10 man raids? less troubles with organisation , less drama , more chance on raiding since you don’t have to count on that many peeps.”

I have to admit I can sympathize with her frustration, but I feel that the change is necessary and long overdue. In addition, if a 25-man guild kicks out the weakest links, it goes on to prove the social point I made above: everyone prefers playing World of Warcraft with the people they can trust and rely on in any given situation. This change, although not terribly conducive to incite interest in 25-mans, allows you to do that.

“First because 10 and 25s are on the same lockout timer, I expect to see pug 10s and 25s (with the exception of alt runs) to mostly disappear, no one wants to chance getting a pug together and lock themselves out of both the 25 and 10 man version, especially if you can run it with your guild. Most raiding guilds probably won’t tolerate you getting locked out of raids.”

It is an interesting thought, but I doubt most individuals that raid endgame competitively, also pug the same content. I think pugging will continue, albeit the number of raids will reduce because of the shared lockout ID, but not disappear altogether. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

“This is fantastic. My guild (or a pug or whatever) can choose to spread our content out over a longer period and tackle one of these smaller raids a night or pack them all in. We can rotate people in and out and people can choose what they can make and not feel like they’re missing out by going to one because better loot drops in the other. I’m a big proponent of streamlining raids. I’d prefer them to just be the dang bosses anyway with the fights being more intricate and epic. This moves right along in that direction.”

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My guess is that you will have to pick a 10 or 25man raid for the week. No switching between the two will be allowed.

Also, Don’t forget that 25mans also get more badges and gold too. I think people saying that 25man raiding is dead at this point have no idea what they are talking about. Everything is subject to change and blizzard has found the perfect solution to a problem on many occasions. Everyone always bitches about something new and then suddenly everyone forgets about it because it is well implemented.

The hardcore, 5 nights a week raiders will continue to do 25 mans for more loots and badges and prestige, and the more casuals will flock to smaller, tighter guilds and do 10mans. I think everyone is going to win in this situation.

I mean, I understand that some people do legitimately enjoy 25-mans, because they feel more epic or whatever. I do not, 25s make my head hurt, and that’s not fun. It seems to me that most of the people who are upset about this change seem to take it for granted that given the choice between 10-man and 25-man instances that are otherwise identical, everyone would choose 10-man, and the 25-man raiding game will die.

But…

If most people would choose 10-man, wouldn’t that mean they prefer 10s, and are only running 25s now because it’s the only way to get the best loot? Why can’t we run the instances we want to run AND get the best loot? I’m tired of feeling pressured into running things I don’t like because the gear from the places I *do* like is inferior.

I am a big proponent of this change for many of the same reasons you list; first and foremost being the tight-knit nature of a 10-man group vs. the acquaintances of a 25. I think this is a great change, but can certainly understand the hesitation from 25-man oriented guilds.

Our 40-man raids had an extremely tight knit core carrying a bunch of retards through content. For every exceptional player, we had a keyboard turning tank, slowly inching his way 180 degrees as adds I pulled off him with healing aggro during Gothik the Harvester destroyed me. The time commitments for the raids themselves were brutal, saying nothing of the headache of actually organizing, running, and administrating these beasts. With the advent of Burning Crusade’s lower raid sizes, the strength of our core shined through, however, as we pulled off server firsts in Gruul’s Lair, as well as Karazhan. 10 mans and 25 mans, while easier to get together than their 40 man predecessors, brought with them their own administrative challenges. How do we go about cutting the fat transitioning into this new raid size? How do we create a 10 man ‘A’ team for Karazhan progression without making other guild members feel alienated? What ended up really doing us in, however, was a case of the old ‘burn outs‘. Many of our core began taking breaks from raiding, or the game in general, and understandably so.

Lich King did a good job in bringing raids to the masses, so to speak, or as I like to call it, ‘Nintendo Wii’ing World of Warcraft’. Many classes were homogenized, dungeons were made simpler (who remembers the last time CC was necessary?) and 10 and 25 man version of raids were introduced, with optional challenges to help filter difficulty and appeal to the widest variety of players. More casual players were given badge loot to gear up in epics, however, the real loot was still, nonetheless, reserved for the 25 man raiders. Previous raiders like myself, not for lack of skill but rather lack of time, were thus still shafted from the best loot, but at least given a bit of compensation as WoW continued to become much more casual friendly. This merging of 10/25 man raid loot/lockouts is the next logical progression in Blizzard’s apparent strategy. Just as Nintendo’s ‘Blue Ocean’ strategy expanded the gaming market by appealing to a wider variety of people, so too does Blizzard expand WoW’s gazillion person player-base by continuing to appeal to an expanding contingent of casual player. I, for one, welcome this change.

With 10 man raids now on equal footing with 25, I’m able to raid with what’s left of my best old-school raiding friends and be rewarded, not for our time sink, but for our skill (assuming Blizzard is able to properly balance difficulty). The beauty of playing with a group you’ve known for 5 years is that the headache previously associated with raid leading is completely gone. 10 mans of this nature are laizzez faire. As Bronte said, these are knuckleheads you can trust with your virtual life. I know Bronte can pick up the slack if I get incapacitated; I know these tanks won’t keyboard turn and let me die to adds *cough* Waevyrn; I know these DPS won’t stand there with their thumbs up their butts while a mob blast novas; I know Peebers is going to be drunk. This kind of synergy is what makes 10 mans so appealing.

Many hardcore raiders hate this pandering to the casual, seeing it as trivializing their hard work, and I sympathize. However, look at it this way: the added time it takes to organize 25 mans will be balanced by the increased speed in which 25 man raiders will gear up via increased item and badge drops. Many people seem to be downplaying the importance of this. What this means is that it is 25 man players who will first be decked out in Tier 42, and therefore the first players geared enough to take on Hard Modes, reaping the inherent benefits (Be it titles, mounts, better gear, etc.). Your elitist e-peen can still be satiated! People who see this change as the death of 25 mans are mistaken. The quality of a piece of gear should be based on the skill required to obtain it. The amount of gear you acquire should be dependent on the amount of time/energy you put into acquiring it. This seems to be the philosophy Blizzard is approaching with these new raids, and therefore there will still be much incentive for 25 man raiding as it will simply be the quickest way to gear up and take on Hard Modes. That time and effort you put into organization is rewarded with efficiency, while still allowing 10 mans to acquire equal level gear, albeit at a slower pace. And I’m entirely all right with that.